The  Story 

of 

A  Great  Achievement 


TELEPHONE   COMMUNICATION 
FROM    COAST    TO    COAST 


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The  Story  of  A  Great  Achievement 


T  ESS  than  forty  years  ago, 
Alexander  Graham  Hell, 
standing  in  a  little  attic  at  No. 
5  Exeter  Place,  Boston,  sent 
through  a  crude  telephone,  his 
own  invention,  the  first  spoken 
words  ever  carried  over  a  wire, 
and  the  words  were  heard  and 
understood  by  Ins  associate, 
Thomas  A.  Watson,  who  was 
at  the  receiver  in  an  adjacent 
room.  On  that  day,  March  10, 
1876,  the  telephone  was  born, 
and  the  first  message  went  over 
the  only  telephone  line  in  the 
world — a  line  less  than  a  hundred 
feet  long.  The  world  moves  a 
long  way  ahead  in  the  span  of  one 
man's  life.  On  Monday  after- 
noon, January  25th,  this  same  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  sitting  in 
the  offices  of  the  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company,  at 
New  York,  talked  to  this  same  Thomas  A.  Watson  in  San  Francisco, 
over  a  wire  stretching  3,400  miles  across  the  continent  and  part  of  a 
system  that  includes  9,000,000  telephones,  connected  by  21,000,000 
miles  of  wires. 

In  that  same  memorable  year  of  1876,  Dom  Pedro  de  Alcantara, 
Emperor  of  Brazil,  visiting  the  first  telephone  exhibition  at  our  first 
great  national  show,  the  Philadelphia  Centennial,  picked  up  the 
receiver,  listened  as  Professor  Bell  talked  at  the  other  end  of  the  room, 
and,  amazed  at  the  wonder  of  the  thing,  cried  out:  "My  God — it 
speaks."  Had  Dom  Pedro  lived  to  see  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition 
he  could  have  heard  Professor  Bell  talking  to  him,  not  merely  from  the 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 


*A 


THE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


THOMAS  A.  WATSON 

other  end  of  a  room,  but  from  the 
other  side  of  a  continent. 

The  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  it- 
self, planned  to  celebrate  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Panama  Canal  and 
the  joining  of  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  oceans,  will  mark  a  still 
closer  welding  of  the  East  and  West. 
When  its  gates  are  thrown  open  on 
February  20th,  San  Francisco  will 
not  only  be  nearer  to  New  York 
through  a  shortening  of  its  water- 
ways, but  will  be  in  constant  and 
instantaneous  touch  with  it  through 
the  medium  of  speech.  It  is  a  curi- 
ous fact,  too,  that  this  second  great 
feat  of  engineering,  this  other  canal, 
this  even  more  intimate  connection 
between  the  two  seaboards,  has  been 
completed  in  the  same  year.  Quietly, 
almost  unnoticed,  but  steadily  and 
bravely,  while  the   gigantic  steam 


shovels  were  cutting  their  way 
through  the  earth  in  the  South, 
the  engineers  of  sound  and  elec- 
tricity were  weaving  their  magic 
webs  through  the  air  and  pushing 
on  toward  the  Golden  Gate. 
Their  work  has  been  less  spec- 
tacular, it  has  excited  little  at- 
tention, but  these  men  have  met 
obstacles  as  hard  to  overcome  as 
the  Culebra  slide,  and  they  have 
conquered  them.  The  long- 
dreamed -of  Transcontinental 
Line  is  no  longer  a  dream.  New 
York  can  talk  to  San  Francisco. 

The  Transcontinental 
Line   Open 

Monday,  January  25,  1915, 
has  taken  its  place  among  the 
momentous  dates  in  the  annals 


BELL'S  "GALLOWS"  FRAME 

TELEPHONE 

First  instrument  used  by  A.  G.  Bell. 

These  were  magneto  instruments  operat- 
ing without  the  aid  of  a  battery,  and  each 
served  both  as  transmitter  and  receiver, 
the  user  speaking  into  and  then  listening 
at  the  orifice  or  mouthpiece. 


THE   STORY   OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


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4  THE   STORY   OF  A   GREAT   ACHIEVEMENT 

of  science  and  human  progress.  On  that  day,  in  the  presence  of  groups 
of  prominent  men  on  either  coast,  the  Transcontinental  telephone  wires 
were  given  their  first  public  test,  and  the  completion  of  the  line  was 
formally  celebrated.  Distinguished  men  in  the  offices  of  the  Pacific 
Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  in  San  Francisco  conversed  freely 
with  distinguished  men  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  one  more  great 
chapter  in  the  history  of  telephony  was  finished  as  Bell,  sitting  in  the 
offices  of  the  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  in  New 
York,  talked  to  Watson  across  a  continent. 

There  was  no  hitch  in  the  programme,  or  any  doubt  as  to  the  im- 
mediate success  and  practicability  of  the  new  line.  Those  who  talked 
over  the.  telephone  did  not  raise  their  voices  above  the  usual  conver- 
sational pitch,  and  the  replies  came  back  from  across  the  continent, 
clear  and  instantaneous.  There  was  no  more  effort,  delay  or  indistinct- 
ness than  in  talking  across  a  table.  Professor  Bell  says  that  he  thought 
out  the  telephone  in  Salem.  A  fitting  place  for  its  conception — there  is 
witchcraft  in  it,  and  the  most  blase  of  business  men  in  the  offices  of  the 
American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  on  Monday  felt  something 
akin  to  uncanniness  at  the  thought  that  his  voice  had  gone  across 
thirteen  states,  shot  over  prairies  and  through  forests,  hurtled  through 
cities,  climbed  the  Rockies,  skimmed  across  the  desert  and  reached 
the  Pacific  coast,  and  the  answer  had  come  back  to  him  in  an  eye-wink. 


SAN  FRANCISCO  OPENING  OF  THE  TRANSCONTINENTAL  LINE. 


THE   STOKY   OF   A   GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


A   Dramatic    Moment 

Thene  have  boon  few  more  dra- 
matic moments  in  the  history  of 
science  than  when  the  venerable 
Professor  Bell  lifted  the  receiver 
from  its  hook  and  called  to  Watson, 
the  friend  and  fellow-workman  of 
his  youth,  in  far  away  San  Francisco. 
Tli ere  was  a  wonderful  story  in  that 
first  "Hello,"  a  marvelous  tale  of 
miracle-working,  of  heroic  struggle 
and  sublime  achievement.  Few  men 
have  seen  so  great  a  dream  come 
true,  probably  no  two  men  before, 
in  all  the  history  of  the  world's 
discoveries  and  inventions,  ever 
lived  to  see  such  magnificent  re- 
sults from  work  in  which  they  had  been  the  pioneers.  Hardened  tele- 
phone users  as  all  of  those  present  were,  and  accustomed  to  big  events 
as  most  of  them  were,  a  hush  that  was  tinged  with  awe,  an  almost  solemn 
silence,  fell  on  the  assemblage  as  the  great  inventor  talked  to  his 
associate.  Every  one  felt  that  he  was  taking  part  in  an  epoch-making 
event,  that  in  the  future,  school  children  would  be  made  to  learn  Janu- 
ary twenty-fifth  as  one  of  the  big  dates  in  the  world's  scientific,  com- 
mercial and  political   history,  one   that  ranked  with  that  other  day 

when   "What  hath    God  wrought" 
was  flashed  over  Morse's  wire. 


DOCTOR  BELL  IN   1876 


*5 


MR.  WATSON    IN   1874 


In  the  Space  of  a  Lifetime 

Most  wonderful  of  all,  perhaps,  in 
the  minds  of  those  present  at  the 
opening  of  the  new  line  was  the  fact 
that  this  achievement,  the  crowning 
glory  of  so  vast  and  complex  a  system, 
had  taken  place  within  the  space  of  a 
man's  lifetime.  On  March  10,  1876, 
Professor  Bell,  working  away  at  the 
simple  telephone  he  had  invented, 
called  to  his  comrade,  "  Mr.  Watson, 
come  here,  I  want  you,"  and  Wat- 
son heard  that  first  of  all  telephone 


6  THE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 

messages  over  the  wire.  In  New  York  on  January  25,  1915,  the 
same  voice  was  talking  and,  in  San  Francisco,  the  same  ear  was 
listening,  as  on  that  spring  day  thirty-eight  years  ago,  but  under  what 
different  conditions!  Then  the  struggling  young  inventor  and  his  as- 
sociate had  just  succeeded  in  producing  the  only  telephone  in  the  world 
and  in  talking  over  a  few  feet  of  wire.  Ahead  of  them  were  years  of 
ridicule  for  their  invention,  indifference  to  their  plans  and  opposition 
to  their  efforts.  On  this  other  great  day  they  saw  their  simple  contri- 
vance as  part  of  a  vast  system  joining  together  the  country's  greatest 


CENTRAL  TELEPHONE  EXCHANGE,  NEW  YORK  CITY,    1880 

The  first  switchboards  used  were  of  the  "plug  and  strip"  type  and  patterned  after  the 
old  telegraph  switchboard. 


and  most  distant  cities  and  serving  the  uses  of  100,000,000  people. 
Not  many  men  have  seen  so  great  a  fulfillment  of  their  early  ambitions, 
no  other  invention  has  ever  taken  so  great  a  stride  in  so  brief  a  time. 
It  has  been  sl  tremendous  stride,  for  when  Bell  invented  that 
first  feeble  receiver,  it  was  the  beginning  of  telephones.  There  had 
been  nothing  like  it  or  anywhere  near  like  it  in  all  the  ages.  It  was 
a  creation — as  far  as  scientific  apparatus  was  concerned,  it  was  made 
out  of  nothing.  More  than  that,  this  crude  instrument — just  capable  of 
transmitting  speech  the  length  of  a  room — was  all  Bell  gave  to  the  art 
of  telephony,  but  it  was  enough.  The  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph 
Company  and  its  associated  companies  have  done  the  rest. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


The  Real  Problem 

Just  what  this  "rest"  means  can  be  fully  appreciated  by  those 
only  who  know  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome  by  the  telephonic  engineer 
and  the  subtlety  and  delicacy  of  the  forces  with  which  he  has  to  deal. 
The  very  minuteness  of  things  makes  his  task  herculean.  Instead  of 
having  to  figure  on  immense  weights  and  masses,  he  is  baffled  by  in- 
finitesimally  small  fractions.  His  energies  are  devoted  to  conservation, 
and  conservation  of  the  most  intense  kind. 

It  was,  perhaps,  little  more  difficult  to  string  wires  from  Denver 
to  San  Francisco  than  from  New  York  to  Denver,  but  the  actual  con- 
struction of  the  line  was  the  least  of  the  engineer's  troubles.  His  real 
problem  was  to  make  the  line  "talk,"  to  send  something  3,000  miles 
with  a  breath  as  the  motive  power.  In  effect,  the  voyage  of  the  voice 
across  the  continent  is  instantaneous;  if  its  speed  could  be  accurately 
measured,  a  fifteenth  of  a  second  would  probably  be  nearly  exact.  In 
other  words,  a  message  flying  across  the  continent  on  the  new  Trans- 
continental Line,  travels,  not  at  the  rate  of  1,160  feet  per  second,  which 
is  the  old  stage-coach  speed  of  sound,  but  at  56,000  miles  per  second. 
If  it  were  possible  for  sound  to  carry  that  far,  a  "Hello"  uttered  in  New 
York  and  traveling  through  the  air  without  the  aid  of  wires  and  elec- 
tricity would  not  reach  San  Francisco  until  four  hours  later.  The 
telephone  not  only  transmits  speech,  but  transmits  it  thousands  of 
times  faster  than  its  own  natural  speed. 

But,  while  the  telephone  is  breaking  speed  records,  it  must  also 
guarantee  safe  delivery  to  these  millions  of  little  passengers  it  carries 
every  few  minutes  in  the  way  of  sound  waves  created  at  the  rate  of 
2,100  a  second.  There  must  be  no  jostling  or  crowding.  These  tiny 
waves,  thousands  and  thousands  of  varying  shapes,  which  are  made  by 
the  human  voice,  and  each  as 
irregular  and  as  different  from 
the  other  as  the  waves  of  the 
sea,  must  not  tumble  over  each 
other  or  get  into  each  other's 
way,  but  must  break  upon  the 
Pacific  coast  just  as  they  started 
at  the  Atlantic,  or  all  the  line 
fails  and  the  millions  of  dollars 
spent  upon  it  have  been  thrown 
away.  And  in  all  this  line,  if  THE  first  commercial  switch- 
just  one  pin-point  of  construe-  board 

,.  .  j.      m- u   «         sj  Opened  in  New  Haven,  Conn.,  in    January, 

tlOn   IS   not   as   it   Should   be,    if        1878,  by  George  W.  Coy  and  Herrick  P.  Froirt. 


8  THE   STORY   OF  A   GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 

there  is  one  iota  of  imperfection,  the  miles  of  line  are  useless,  and  the 
currents  and  waves  and  sounds  and  words  do  not  reach  the  end  as  they 
should.  It  is  such  tremendous  trifles,  not  the  climbing  of  mountains 
and  the  bridging  of  chasms,  that  make  the  Transcontinental  Line  one 
of  the  wonders  of  the  ages. 


CHANGES  IN  THE  ELECTRICAL  CURRENT  WHEN  THE 

The  engineer  in  telephony  cannot  increase  his  motive  power.  A 
breath  against  a  metal  disk  changes  air  waves  into  electrical  currents 
and  these  electrical  currents,  millions  of  which  are  required  for  a  single 
conversation,  must  be  carried  across  the  continent  and  produce  the 
same  sound  waves  in  San  Francisco  as  were  made  in  New  York.  Here 
is  a  task  so  fine  as  to  be  gigantic.  In  his  "  History  of  the  Telephone," 
Herbert  N.  Casson  says  that  the  energy  set  free  by  cooling  one  spoonful 


CHANGES  IN  THE  ELECTRICAL  CURRENT  WHEN  THE  W 

The  above  illustrations  represent  the  changes  in  the  electrical  current  which  take  place  in  a  telephoi 

such  a  picture  represents  the  current  changes  which  take  place  on  any  point  on  the  circuit  during  the  peri( 


of  water  just  one  degree  would  operate  a  telephone  for  ten  thousand 
years.  It  was  to  nurse  and  coax  this  baby  current  of  electricity  three 
thousand  miles  across  the  continent,  under  rivers  and  over  mountains, 
through  the  blistering  heat  of  the  alkali  plains  and  the  cold  of  snow- 
capped peaks,  that  has  taken  the  time  and  thought  and  labor  of  the 
brightest  minds  of  the  scientific  world. 


THE   STORY  OF  A   GREAT   ACHI1  \  1  Ml  XT  9 

Solving  the  Problem 

Never  before  has  there  been  such  a  skillful  and  patient  lot  of 
trained  nurses,  though,  as  this  invalid  of  a  current  has  had.  Beginning 
with  that  first  timid  step  in  Boston,  thirty-eight  years  ago,  they  have 


J)RD  "NEW  YORK"  IS  SPOKEN  INTO  THE  TELEPHONE 

led   the  weakling  on,  mile  after  mile,  to  city  after  city,  till  it  has 
reached  the  other  coast. 

Who  did  it?  Who  made  this  wonderful  achievement  possible? 
Ten  thousand  men,  beginning  with  Bell  and  Watson  tinkering  away  at 
that  first  crude  telephone  in  an  attic,  forty  years  ago.  It  has  taken 
an  army  of  thoughtful,  conscientious,  patient  men,  keen  of  brain  and 
skilled  of  hand,  striving  day  and  night  for  the  one  great  end — the  per- 


p  "SAN  FRANCISCO"  IS  SPOKEN  INTO  THE  TELEPHONE  B*HCIoh 

ircuit  while  the  word  indicated  is  spoken  into  the  transmitter  attached  to  that  circuit.     About  five  feet  oi 
f  one  second. 


fection  of  a  system  and  the  conquering  of  time  and  space.  In  office, 
laboratory  and  shop,  under  the  earth,  high  up  in  the  air,  they  have 
thought  and  experimented  and  toiled,  always  aiming  toward  this  idea 
of  universal  service. 

There  has  been  no  isolated  problem,  literally  as  well  as  figuratively 
the  development  and  perfection  of  the  system  has  been  "all  along  the 


10  THE   STORY   OF  A   GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 

line."  The  fight,  this  new  "Winning  of  the  West,"  has  not  been  a 
duel,  to  be  won  by  a  single  inventor  struggling  for  the  solution  of  some 
one  big  problem,  but  a  battle,  a  campaign,  in  which  thousands  have 
helped  to  overcome  a  thousand  hindrances  and  imperfections  and  diffi- 
culties. 

When  the  telephone  left  the  hands  of  Bell  and  Watson,  it  was 
"an  essentially  perfected  instrument"  in  the  eyes  of  the  law,  that  is, 
it  did  what  was  claimed  for  it — it  talked — but  that  was  all.  The 
diaphragm  was  simply  an  animal  membrane  tied  around  a  piece  of  wood 
and  in  touch  with  a  magnet.  From  this  acorn  the  oak  of  the  Bell  Sys- 
tem, nation  wide,  has  grown.  From  this  small  beginning,  the  Trans- 
continental Line  has  been  evolved,  and  it  has  been  an  evolution.  In 
the  words  of  President  Theodore  N.  Vail,  it  is  "the  cumulative  effect 
of  improvements,  great  and  small,  in  telephone,  transmitter,  line,  cable, 
switchboard,  and  every  other  piece  of  apparatus  or  plant  required  in 
the  transmission  of  speech."  In  all  the  3,400  miles  of  the  line  there 
is  no  one  spot  where  a  man  may  point  his  finger  and  say,  "Here  is 
the  secret  of  the  Transcontinental  Line;  here  is  what  makes  it  possible 
to  telephone  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco."  Rather,  it  is  the  per- 
fection at  every  point  that  has  brought  this  about.  It  is  the  develop- 
ment of  the  transmitter  at  New  York  that  makes  the  receiver  at  San 
Francisco  do  its  work  so  well;  it  is  the  improvements  in  the  receiver 
at  San  Francisco  th°t  cause  the  transmitter  at  New  York  to  perform 
its  functions  so  admirably;  it  is  the  perfecting  of  every  inch  of  line 
and  every  bit  of  mechanism  between  them  that  enables  the  instrument 
at  New  York  to  talk  and  that  at  San  Francisco  to  hear. 

The  Magnitude  of  the  Task 

In  spite,  however,  of  the  fact  that,  compared  with  the  electrical 
problems,  the  mere  engineering  task  of  constructing  the  line  may  appear 
simple  to  the  scientist,  no  one  can  run  his  finger  over  the  route  of  the 
new  line  on  the  map  without  being  impressed  with  the  magnitude  of 
the  undertaking.  The  data  and  figures  are  tremendous.  The  line 
crosses  thirteen  states,  it  is  carried  on  130,000  poles.  Four  hard-drawn 
copper  wires,  .165  inch  in  diameter,  run  side  by  side  over  the  entire 
distance,  establishing  two  physical  and  one  phantom  circuit.  One 
mile  of  a  single  wire  weighs  435  pounds,  the  weight  of  the  wires  in  the 
entire  fine  being  5,920,000  pounds  or  2,960  tons.  This,  of  course,  is 
the  transmission  wires  alone.  In  addition  to  these,  each  physical 
circuit  uses  some  13,600  miles  of  fine  hair-like  insulated  wire,  4-1,000  of 
an  inch  in  diameter,  for  its  loading  coils. 


THE  STORY  OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


II 


V    ;  *m 


tm 


12 


THE   STORY   OF   A   GREAT   ACHIEVEMENT 


Simply  to  string  this  immense  amount  of  wire  across  the  continent, 
to  set  the  poles  and  insure  insulation,  to  conquer  the  innumerable 
difficulties  offered  by  land  and  water,  forests,  mountains,  deserts,  rivers 
and  lakes,  was  in  itself  a  task  of  no  mean  magnitude.  The  Panama 
.Canal  is  hailed  as  one  of  the  greatest  achievements  of  the  world's  workers, 
as  it  is,  but  the  almost  invisible  lines  of  the  Bell  System,  considered 
simply  as  to  labor  and  cost,  constitute  a  monumental  achievement. 

The  Canal  was  begun  nine  years  ago  and  has  cost  $310,000,000; 
within  the  same  space  of  time  the  Bell  Company  has  spent  twice  that 

amount    in   its    engineering 

construction  work  alone. 

Two  Leaders  in  the 
Work 

The  building  of  the  Trans- 
continental Line  depended 
on  the  solution  of  no  one  iso- 
lated problem  nor  will  the 
glory  of  it  be  given  to  any 
one  isolated  individual,  but 
there  are  a  few  names  that 
will  always  stand  out  above 
the  rest  in  connection  with 
it.  There  must  be  great 
generals  for  armies  that  win 
such  victories. 

For  many  years  this  line 
from  ocean  to  ocean  has  been 
the  dream  of  Theodore  N. 
Vail,  president  of  the  Amer- 
ican Telephone  &  Telegraph 
Company,  the  goal  toward  which  he  has  pushed  and  toward  which 
he  has  steadily  led  his  associates  and  the  army  of  his  employees.  Not 
the  dream  of  a  dreamer,  but  the  prophetic  vision  of  a  practical,  forceful, 
capable  man,  a  man  of  unlimited  business  energy  and  knowledge,  who 
could  see  anything  in  telephony  except  impossibilities.  He  not  only 
cannot  see  them,  but  will  not  admit  that  they  exist;  he  does  not  find 
the  word  "impossible"  in  his  dictionary  of  engineering  terms.  Almost 
from  the  beginning  of  the  telephone,  his  energy  and  enthusiasm,  his 
dauntless  optimism  and  ambition  in  everything  relating  to  its  perfection 


THEODORE    N.  VAIL 


Till:    STORY    OF     \    CKKAT     \<   llll.\  1.M1.NT 


L3 


and  promotion,  and  his  idea  of  "universal  service,"  have  dominated  the 
company  and  made  enthusiasts  of  every  one  connected  with  it  in  great 
things  or  in  little. 

At  his  side  through  most  of  these  years  has  been  a  slightly  built, 
lithe,  keen-eyed  man,  who  never  has  to  be  told  but  once  when  a  great 
thing  is  to  be  clone.  A  nod,  and  a  line  goes  to  Denver;  a  word,  and  it 
stretches  to  the  Pacific  coast.  That  is  John  J.  Carty,  Chief  Engineer 
of  the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Company.  A  leader  among 
the  scientific  men  of  all  nations  and  honored  by  their  rulers  for  his  dis- 
tinguished services  in  engineering  accomplishment,  his  wide  knowledge, 
his  keen  judgment  and  his  indomi- 
table energy  have  combined  to 
make  him  one  of  the  great  factors 
in  telephone  achievement  and  ad- 
vancement. He  is  a  wizard  of  the 
wires.  Long  ago  he  said  this  great 
thins  could  and  should  be  done, 
and  through  the  great  banks  of 
silence  that  separated  the  East 
from  the  West,  this  Goethals  of 
electricity  has  been  cutting  his 
way,  year  by  year,  until  the  great 
canal  of  human  speech  is  done. 

Others  have  played  big  parts 
in  this  drama  of  human  endeavor 
and  achievement,  and  thousands 
have  given  their  share  of  thought 
and  labor,  but,  whoever  is  forgot- 
ten or  remembered,  the  names  of 
Vail  and  Carty  will  be  linked  with 
this  new  triumph  of  science  as  long 
as  man  talks  to  man. 

There  has  been  no  greater  achievement  in  the  history  of  the  Bell 
Company,  none  in  the  history  of  telephony,  few  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  The  gain  to  science  is  great.  Immeasurably  more  precious, 
however,  is  that  to  the  nation,  and  incalculably  greater  are  the  benefits 
to  commerce  and  society.  What  the  Transcontinental  means  to  the 
future  of  the  country,  what  it  will  bring  about  by  drawing  the  East  and 
West  closer  together,  how  much  of  increased  prosperity  and  happiness 
these  thousands  of  miles  of  wire  will  insure,  no  man  can  gauge. 


JOHN  J.  CARTY 


14 


THE   STORY   OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


What  it  Means  to  the  Country 

One  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  guests  who  talked  over  the  longest 
of  long  distance  telephones  at  the  celebration,  said: 

"I  thought  I  had  gotten  over  wondering  at  the  miracle  of  the  tele- 
phone, but  what  I  have  just  done  amazes  me  as  much  as  the  first  words 
I  heard  over  the  wires  many  years  ago.  Even  now  I  can  hardly  con- 
ceive that  it  is  possible.  I  have  talked  over  long  distances  many  a  time 
before,  but  this  is  far  beyond  the  limit.  Chicago  I  am  used  to,  even 
Denver;  but  this  talking  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  gives  one  a 
thrill.     It  appeals  to  the  imagination — it  is  a  theme  for  poets. 


DISTRIBUTING    POLES  IN  A  MOUNTAINOUS  COUNTRY 


"What  it  means  to  the  country,  it  is  impossible  to  estimate.  For 
one  thing,  it  is  a  final  blow  to  sectionalism — it  has  put  a  seal  on  the  fact 
that  there  is  no  longer  East  and  West,  North  and  South.  Not  even  the 
railroads  or  the  new  canal  have  done  or  can  do  so  much  toward  bring- 
ing the  States  closer  together  and  uniting  them  more  firmly,  not  only  in 
commerce,  but  in  thought  and  language.  Provincialism  will  become 
rarer  and  rarer,  localisms,  dialects — all  such  things  that  depend  on 
isolation — are  getting  to  be  an  impossibility  in  the  United  States, 
and  the  telephone  has  been  the  greatest  agent  in  bringing  about  this 
desirable  condition.  It  is  hard  for  people  to  get  very  far  apart  when  they 
are  in  such  constant  touch  with  each  other,  and  I  know  of  nothing  which 


THE  STOIIY  OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


15 


is  doing  more  to  strengthen  the  bonds  between  individuals  and  com- 
munities than  the  network  of  wires  the  American  Telephone  <&  Telegraph 
Company  is  spreading  over  the  country.  So  much  importance  do  I 
attach  to  this  idea,  that,  extreme  as  the  statement  may  seem,  I  believe 
quite  firmly  that,  had  the  telephone  system  reached  its  present  perfec- 
tion previous  to  1861,  the  Civil  War  would  not  have  occurred.  The 
wires  would  not  have  let  the  North  and  South  drift  so  far  apart." 

Universal  Service 

The  new  Transcontinental  Line  is  a  concrete  exemplification  of  the 
possibilities  of  universal  service  and  a  justification  of  the  arguments 


THE  TRANSCONTINENTAL  LINE  IN  THE  NEVADA  DESERT 


for  a  single  system.  Under  no  other  plan  would  such  a  line  be  possible. 
This  line,  3,400  miles  long,  and  joining  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  is  part 
of  the  great  Bell  System  of  21,000,000  miles  of  wire,  connecting  9,000,- 
000  telephone  stations  located  everywhere  throughout  the  United  States. 
Comprising  this  system  are  the  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Com- 
pany and  its  associated  and  connecting  companies,  thousands  of  them, 
giving  instant  and  perfect  communication  among  100,000,000  people. 

The  opening  of  this  line  is  the  culmination  of  the  Bell  idea  of  uni- 
versal service — in  presenting  it  for  the  use  and  convenience  of  the  pub- 
lic, the  American  Telephone  &  Telegraph  Company  renders  an  account 
of  its  stewardship.     It  has  fulfilled  its  promise  and,  not  only  in  itself, 


10 


THE   STORY   OF  A  GREAT  ACHIEVEMENT 


but  as  an  earnest  of  what  is  to  follow  in  future  development,  this  nation- 
wide line  proves  that  it  is  the  intention  of  the  American  Telephone  '& 
Telegraph  Company  to  make  it  possible  for  every  man  who  can  talk 
to  talk  over  the  telephone  to  every  man  who  can  hear. 

The  telephone  was  born  here  and  it  has  reached  its  greatest  per- 
fection here;  under  no  other  conditions,  except  such  as  exist  in  the  United 
States,  could  it  have  come  to  its  highest  development.  With  its  dozens 
of  telephone  systems,  Europe  has  no  long-distance  line  to  compare  with 
this.  The  Transcontinental  Line  is  a  culmination  of  an  art  that  was 
born  in  the  United  States,  the  high  water  mark  of  a  science  that  was 
created  and  has  been  developed  entirely  by  American  genius  and  enter- 
prise. It  is  the  highest  achievement  of  practical  science  up  to  to-day — 
no  other  nationhas  produced  anything  like  it,  nor  could  any  other  nation. 
It  is  sui  generis,  it  is  gigantic — and  it  is  entirely  American. 


PRINTED   BY   WILLIAM   GREEN.   A  CORPORATION,   NEW  YORK 


